


Recall

by smarshtastic



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, McReyes Week, Memory Loss, Post-Fall of Overwatch, mcreyes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 15:07:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10363206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarshtastic/pseuds/smarshtastic
Summary: Jesse never went looking for the Reaper, but it always seemed to find him. Like a shadow in the night, wherever Jesse went, the Reaper appeared. Jesse knows when he's being followed,stalked- he ran plenty of missions in Blackwatch where he was the stalker, not the target. And the more that Jesse encountered the creature, the more Jesse was determined to unwind the shroud of mystery that surrounded it. He had a hunch, and he prayed to a god he never really believed in that he was wrong.---Reaper seems to be tracking Jesse for a reason, but he wasn't expecting what that reason might be.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fabrega](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/gifts).



> Happy [Spring Break](https://mcreyesevents.tumblr.com)! Happily, actual angel who we do not deserve [fabrega](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/) reminded me that I needed to get my but in gear if I wanted to actually contribute. I don't think she meant "torture her with angst," though. Ha ha, um? Whoops! More to come for the rest of the week, stay tuned :)
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](http://wictorwictor.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/smarshtastic).

Jesse chews on the end of his unlit cigar, back against a wall and Peacekeeper ready in his hand, waiting for the target to pass through his field of vision. His hat is tilted low but his eyes are sharp under the brim. He’s become more patient since he was young - more reckless, somehow, but it’s not like he has a whole lot to live for these days.

Jesse has no business tracking Talon. He’s one person, and they’re a huge multi-national terrorist organization with longer tendrils than Jesse could ever hope to unwind. Still, he goes digging between the odd jobs he takes to keep himself in whiskey, gun oil, and cigars. There is something uncomfortably familiar about the way Talon agents operate. Jesse does his best to keep his distance, just in case. He left that life behind a long time ago and there is nothing left to go back to.

Somehow, though, Talon keeps showing up on these missions that Jesse takes for himself. He’s lost more than a couple jobs due to their interference, and it’s really starting to piss him off. They aren’t going after him, for some reason. It’s like they’re letting Jesse do all the work and then collecting the rewards for themselves. Jesse’s had it up to _here_ with their bullshit.

This is one of those jobs that Talon is liable to show up on. Jesse did his homework: the target is wanted on at least four continents for weapons smuggling, but he has an education in ballistics that is considered extremely valuable. Jesse means to take him in himself, collect the reward, then go off gently into the night. It almost never works out that way, even in the best of circumstances, but with Talon breathing down his neck, it’s even less likely to work out in Jesse’s favor.

Fortunately, Jesse is on home turf. He knows the southwest like the back of his hand - he knows how to use the terrain to his advantage. As far as he knows, Talon doesn’t have the same advantage and his target certainly doesn’t have any clue what’s awaiting him in these parts.

The caravan bumps down the gravel road, throwing up a thick plume of dust in its wake. Jesse doesn’t move immediately, watching the trucks carefully before he finally raises Peacekeeper. He aims and shoots three times. He takes out the back tire of the first, and then the front and back tire of the second truck. It’s enough to bring the last truck to a screeching halt before it collides with the other two. Jesse pushes himself off the wall of the gas station, relying on the cloud of dust to keep him mostly out of sight.

Jesse is only a couple of yards away when a dark plume of smoke drops in the middle of the caravan’s chaos. He feels a vice constrict around his heart: the Reaper.

He’s seen the Reaper before. It’s a shadow creature - more monster than human, something that melts out of the shadows, bringing darkness and death wherever it goes. Jesse has heard stories about the Reaper for as long as he can remember, as far back as when he was a kid in Deadlock, and during his time in Blackwatch too. Now that Jesse’s been out on his own, the Reaper has shown up more and more in his particular line of work. Rumor has it that it was hunting down former Overwatch agents. The first time Jesse encountered the Reaper, he thought there was something familiar about the creature. The way it moved gracefully through the battlefield, the way it wielded two shotguns effortlessly, like it was nothing. Jesse had to rein in his imagination, had to remind himself that anything he thought he was recognizing in the creature were exaggerated by his mind - a sick sense of wishful thinking - that there was no way any creature like the Reaper could be anything that he’s ever encountered before. There were times when Jesse got close enough to the Reaper that he could practically taste the sweet rot of dead flesh on his tongue, and yet still couldn’t shake the familiar feeling that went forcibly unacknowledged in his gut.

But there were enough instances to give Jesse pause. He never went looking for the Reaper, but it always seemed to find him. Like a shadow in the night, wherever Jesse went, the Reaper appeared. Jesse knows when he's being followed, _stalked -_ he ran plenty of missions in Blackwatch where he was the stalker, not the target. And the more that Jesse encountered the creature, the more Jesse was determined to unwind the shroud of mystery that surrounded it. He had a hunch, and he prayed to a god he never really believed in that he was wrong.

Now, Jesse watches the Reaper pull out the passengers of the caravan, looking for the target. Anger flares in the pit of his stomach and Jesse surges forward. He takes a shot at the Reaper, even though he knows it’s going to go right through the creature’s insubstantial form. It does have the effect of drawing the Reaper’s attention to Jesse. The creature’s masked face turns toward Jesse and he feels his blood run cold. Jesse shoots again.

In the blink of an eye, a surprisingly substantial hand is wrapped around his throat and Jesse is knocked back into the dust. The Reaper is heavy, oppressively so, pressing Jesse into the gravel. Jesse manages to get Peacekeeper up between them and fires the last shot in the chamber into the Reaper’s chest. A wisp of smoke floats up between them, but it seems to only make the Reaper’s hand tighten around Jesse’s throat. He gasps for breath.

“Fuck you,” Jesse bites out, struggling. The Reaper’s hand tightens around Jesse’s throat. The claws at the end of his gloved fingers draw blood. Jesse can feel the oxygen leaving his body, the edge of his vision going dark. In one last desperate move, Jesse bucks up as best he can, driving his forehead up to headbutt the Reaper as hard as he can manage. The mask is knocked away and the last bit of air leaves Jesse’s lungs in a pained gasp, “Gabe?”

The last thing Jesse sees is Gabriel Reyes’ eyebrows knitting together briefly over cold, deadened eyes.

=-=-=

Jesse wakes some indeterminate time later, cheek pressed into the scratchy pillow in the motel room where he'd been staying for the last few days. He automatically puts a hand up to his head and when he doesn't find his hat, he sits straight up. His whole body protests the sudden movement. He wobbles on the spot, vision swimming. When it clears, Jesse spots his hat on the pillow next to him, covering Peacekeeper. Jesse frowns. He rubs a hand over his face.

It had to have been a nightmare. Just a dream.

Jesse picks up his gun and checks the chamber. It's empty. He frowns again - that's not right. His neck aches - something pulls when he turns his head. When he puts a hand to his neck, he feels fresh scabs: four in a row down his throat, a deeper one just under his chin, all still sticky with coagulating blood.

A whispering breeze makes Jesse’s head snaps up. He whips his gun arm around to the sound. At the end of the bed, the Reaper materializes. The mask’s hollow eyes stare him down.

_Gabe_ , Jesse’s mind supplies. He swallows down the bile in his throat.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Jesse bites out. It can't be Gabe - he's _dead_ , he's been dead for years. His mind is playing tricks on him. He thinks, vaguely, that maybe he should drink a little less. The Reaper doesn't move. Jesse cocks his gun.

“It's empty,” the Reaper says. Jesse scowls.

“What do you want from me?”

“Put the gun down,” the Reaper says. Its voice is low, gravelly. It sends a chill down Jesse’s spine.

“It's empty,” Jesse says, unable to keep the sass out of his voice even now. There's a pause while the Reaper lets Jesse think about his poor self preservation skills.

“I've come to make you an offer,” the Reaper says. Jesse still doesn't lower his gun.

“I ain't interested,” Jesse says.

“You should be.”

“Well I _ain't_ and I suggest you get the hell outta here,” Jesse says. The Reaper doesn't move.

“This won't end well for you,” it says. Jesse barks out a bitter laugh.

“Yeah, I heard that one before. Trust me, if I was worried about that, I would’ve high-tailed it outta here already,” he says. He stares the Reaper down, unnerved by the masked face that looks back at him. Jesse’s heart is thumping in his chest in spite of his best efforts. He's trying not to let the image of his long-dead ex-lover’s face come back to mind - it was surely a trick. Still, Jesse can't help the spark of… it's not hope, exactly, but _something_ that pricks at the back of his mind.

“You would do well in Talon,” the Reaper says. Jesse flexes his fingers around the handle of Peacekeeper.

“Fuck you,” Jesse spits. The Reaper reaches up and removes his mask. Jesse can't help the air that goes out of him like he's been punched.

“You already have,” the Reaper says, using Gabe’s face to form the words. The way his lip curls up at the corner as he speaks is painfully familiar to Jesse, but it looks so wrong, so out of place. It makes his heart ache. His gun hand shakes.

“You can't use him to get to me,” Jesse says, keeping his voice even as best as he can. “I mourned him a long time ago.”

A strange look crosses Gabe’s - _the Reaper’s_ face; that small furrow of the brow again, a tiny spark lighting up its eyes, just for a second. The Reaper places the mask back on his face.

“This is a limited time offer,” the Reaper says. “You should consider it carefully.”

With that, the Reaper dissolves into smoke, a wraith-like figure with glowing embers where its eyes should be. It slides out of the room, through a crack in the window, leaving Jesse alone in his run down motel room.

Jesse gets up as soon as the creature melts away. He reloads his revolver first, then checks his few remaining belongings for tracking tech. He strips off his clothes to check those too. There's nothing that he can find, but that doesn't mean that Talon doesn't have other ways to track him. In the cloudy bathroom mirror, Jesse examines his neck. It's badly bruised, with the long claw marks still oozing blood. He cleans it off as best he can then reties his bandana around his neck. With one last sweep of the motel room, Jesse leaves. He checks the truck he's been using for more tracking tech, but doesn't find anything there either. He revs the engine and gets the hell out of dodge.

It's well into the night before Jesse finally stops. He's in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by stars and not much else, when he finally pulls onto the side of the road. He puts his head down on the steering wheel and lets the sobs rise in his throat.

He thought he had put this behind him. He thought it was over, gone, done with.

It was like something right out of his nightmares. How many times had Jesse dreamed of Gabe coming back to him? How many nightmares of the ghosts of his past coming to torment him? This was too much. The dead look in the creature’s eyes, the way wisps of smoke oozed from the corner of his mouth, the seams where familiar scars crisscrossed his face…

Jesse sucks in a sharp lungful of air. It comes back up in a hiccup but he stubbornly swallows it back down. He can't let it get to him. It's just a cruel trick. They're trying to manipulate him. Jesse rubs the tears out of his eyes with the back of his hand and fumbles for his lighter. With a fresh cigar between his lips, he starts the engine again.

Sometime in the morning, he trades the truck in for another, then makes another trade a few hundred miles later. Jesse takes a circuitous route north and eventually ends up in South Dakota. It's colder than he expected, but he has no trouble finding a place that takes cash and doesn't ask any questions.

Jesse conducts his standard sweep of the motel room - twice, for good measure. He's telling himself he's paranoid, but it's what kept him alive so far, for whatever that's worth. He walks to the liquor store he noticed down the street and buys himself two bottles of whiskey, a bag of jerky, and a bar of chocolate before he heads back to his room.

Jesse inherited his taste for whiskey from his father. It's a cold comfort in times like this. Jesse makes himself at home on the scratchy, mostly clean motel sheets, kicking off his boots and turning the TV on, hoping for a rerun of some classic movie. He drinks directly from the bottle, letting the burn of the whiskey wash from his mouth the stale taste of the cigars he chain smoked on his entire drive north. The whiskey settles hot in the pit of his stomach, making the room tilt and shift as he struggles to keep his eyes on the cars drifting around street corners in the streets of Tokyo.

Jesse stumbles through rubble and smoke, wheezing with the effort, searching desperately for something, some _one_ that he can’t quite find. He tries to call out but his throat can’t form the words. He stumbles and goes down into the rubble. He’s on his back, looking up at the sky as ash and embers float through the air above his head. He thinks, for a moment, that he’s not going to make it. He can’t feel his left arm. Jesse lets his eyes slip closed.

A hand slides under his chin and tilts his head up gently. Jesse blinks back tears as Gabe’s concerned face leans over him.

“I got you,” Gabe says. “I got you, Jesse.”

It’s Gabe. It’s his Gabe - soft and worried and brow furrowed. Relief washes over him. Jesse reaches up for him one-handedly as Gabe bends down to take Jesse into his arms. He lets his breath out, closing his eyes briefly as he’s enveloped into Gabe’s warm embrace.

Something feels wrong.

Jesse opens his eyes to find he’s surrounded by smoke, the tendrils of which are snaking down his throat, into his nose, thick, suffocating. Red, glowing eyes stare him down and Gabe’s face looks like it’s coming apart at the seams. Jesse opens his mouth to scream but he can’t. Gabe’s - the creature that’s inhabiting his body - its laugh seems everywhere and all around him at once, echoing, reverberating painfully right down to his bones. Gabe’s monstrous face leans down over Jesse’s own, sealing his lips over Jesse’s, sucking what feels like the very essence of his being out of his body.

Jesse wakes with a start, breathing hard. The TV is still on, the light is peeking in through the closed curtains. His head is pounding and his neck still aches. Jesse sits up carefully, scrubbing a hand over his face. It was just a dream. Just a bad dream.

Every time he closes his eyes, Jesse sees Gabe’s face coming apart along the scars, leaking smoke, eyes glowing red through the thick veil.

He gets up gingerly, tossing his empty whiskey bottle in the bin as he makes his way into the bathroom. Turning up the shower hot, Jesse strips off his clothes and steps under the spray. He leans an arm against the grimy tiles and lets himself feel, for a moment. It's easy; the bile is already sitting high in his stomach and his heart is raw from the lingering nightmare. It can't be Gabe. It can't be. It can't be.

Jesse’s a fool to hope that it is.

That creature - that _monster_ is just a tool for Talon to try to manipulate Jesse into joining them. It's a creature that's been around for decades. Jesse _knew_ Gabe; he'd have known if Gabe were sneaking off to commit whatever atrocities were stacked against the Reaper. It's a long list. Jesse’s put most of it together himself. He'd have known if it were Gabe.

Wouldn't he?

Jesse's metal hand curls into a fist as he tries to remind himself of the good man that Gabriel Reyes was. He was never the monster that the press tried to make him out to be; he was just an easy scapegoat. Jesse knows there was something rotten in Blackwatch - it's why he left, and it's why Gabe stayed. Gabe thought he could fix it.

Jesse slams his metal hand against the tile. A few tiles crumble under the force, coming loose and raining grout and ceramic onto the shower floor. It's been a long time, Jesse’s had many years to reexamine his past life. Part of him can't keep the lingering doubts from taking root. A smaller, more desperate part of him wants to believe in Gabe, the man he loved, the man who died trying to fix it.

When Jesse finally manages to swallow down the tears and bile, he turns off the shower and steps out. He dries his hair and inspects the marks on his neck. It's badly bruised, but starting to clear up already, thanks in large part to the dose of Gabe’s SEP-enhanced blood he once got long ago. It’s gotten Jesse out of a bad scrape on more than one occasion. He’s grateful for it, even though sometimes - when he’s particularly low - he wishes he’d never had it.

Jesse gets dressed again but then stops, standing in the middle of the motel room. He doesn’t have a plan.

That’s not new. Jesse McCree has never been much of a planner. It’s a particular skill of his - being able to wing it and land on his feet, more or less.

But this whole encounter with the Reaper has rattled him. He doesn’t know what his next move should be, but it can’t be just “wait and see.”

Eventually, Jesse digs out his tablet and scans the area for jobs that need doing - something, anything that will keep him occupied until he figures out his next move.

=-=-=

A day or two later, Jesse finds himself in North Dakota, just outside a town that used to be thriving back when the oil sand boom was still a thing. The crash wasn't kind to this little town - it came out the other side worse than most, the dearth of industry leaving behind a hotbed of criminal activity with little to no oversight. Perfect for Jesse: means there’s work to be done, and not a whole lot of regular folks to worry about getting his hands too dirty.

Jesse loiters outside of a bar on the edge of town, smoking to keep warm. It’s threatening snow and Jesse is hoping his contact shows up before the sky opens up. He’s not built for cold.

A rustling sound around the corner of the building makes Jesse turn. His fingers twitch on the butt of his revolver.

The Reaper ghosts around the corner.

This time, Jesse is ready for him.

He side steps the creature as it rematerializes, tucking and rolling around behind him, coming up behind him and emptying six rounds into the Reaper’s back. The shots make the Reaper falter and stumble, going down on one knee. Jesse reloads the gun with practiced speed and presses against it against the back of the Reaper’s hooded head.

“Get the fuck away from me,” Jesse growls. He cocks his gun.

“Did you consider our offer?”

“You best just kill me,” Jesse says. “I’d rather be dead than work with your kind.”

“That can be arranged,” the Reaper says. He turns his masked face up to Jesse. Jesse tries not to recall the image of Gabe’s face from their previous encounter. He needs to keep his head.

“You can try,” Jesse says, sounding more confident than he feels.

“You think you can take me?”

Jesse doesn’t say anything but he doesn’t lower his gun either. Everything he’s seen from this creature points to a very unfair fight. The Reaper laughs. It reverberates around Jesse, exaggerated and mocking. The Reaper stands up and turns around to face Jesse. Jesse presses Peacekeeper against the Reaper’s sternum.

“I'll die trying,” Jesse says finally.

“This is the best offer you're going to get,” the Reaper says.

“I ain't changing my mind.”

“You'll regret this,” the Reaper says. Jesse lets out a bitter laugh.

“Just add it to the list, sweetheart,” he says. The Reaper makes a grab for Jesse’s gun, but Jesse’s reflexes are still as good as ever. He fires.

The force of the close impact - or maybe it's just the surprise - knocks the Reaper back. Smoke oozes from its chest. Its mask goes clattering to the ground, skidding across the icy cement.

Gabe’s face looks up at Jesse, pinched in pain, surprise, _betrayal_. It's barely held together, leaking smoke between scars, but it's unmistakably Gabe. Jesse feels his stomach flip over.

“I don't know what the _fuck_ you're playing at, but using his body to get to me -” Jesse says, voice wavering. Gabe’s eyes don't leave Jesse’s face.

“Jesse?”

“ _Don't_ ,” Jesse snaps. His voice breaks and his gun arm is shaking. It sounded like Gabe’s voice, just for a moment, if not a bit echoey and far away. “Leave me alone.”

Gabe’s eyebrows knit together for a moment. A strange series of emotions jostle over his fraying face before the corner of his mouth curls into a sneer. Jesse’s blood runs cold.

“Talon will find you.”

The words come out of Gabe’s mouth but his voice goes gravelly again; this is the Reaper talking. Gabe’s face is just another mask. Jesse shouldn't have let it get to him. He should've been better than that.

“Let ‘em waste their time, then,” Jesse says. “I'll never work for Talon.”

The Reaper dissolves into a wraith, swirling away to gather up its mask.

Jesse's ashamed to admit it, but he turns tail and runs instead of standing his ground to fight.

The Reaper doesn't follow.

=-=-=

Jesse’s spent enough years on the road to know how to disappear effectively. He doesn’t have any ties left, so it’s easy to lose himself. He crisscrosses the United States, only using cash, sticking to public transportation and rundown motels and out of the way diners where people don't ask questions. He knows Talon will find him - it’s only a matter of time - but he’s not going to make it easy for them.

In his dreams, Jesse is haunted by Gabe’s decaying face, the spark of recognition in his otherwise deadened eyes, the smoke consuming both of them, suffocating them while the Reaper’s distorted laugh echos around and within them.

Jesse picks up the whiskey bottle because it’s the only thing that keeps the nightmares at bay. It numbs the ache in his heart and quells the voices in his mind. He drinks until the world goes black and silent. In those few moments of unconsciousness, it's almost as if Jesse can pretend nothing is wrong, that he's not doggedly being chased - figuratively and literally - by the ghosts of his past.

He's lost track of where exactly he is. He's vaguely aware that he's running low on cash. There's no way he's going to dip into any of his accounts; Talon will surely have eyes on those. He’ll have to sober up and find a paying job.

He's got enough for one more bottle.

Jesse finds a liquor store with practiced ease, buys himself a bottle of the cheap stuff, then makes his way back to his shitty motel room. The door is barely closed behind him before he's already taking a drink straight from the bottle. Even the cheap stuff hardly burns any more. Jesse flops down on the bed without taking his boots off, the bottle sloshing dangerously. The room tilts and shifts around him. He closes his eyes.

A whispering rustle by Jesse’s ear makes all the hair on his arms stand on end. He counts to ten before he speaks. He doesn’t sit up, doesn't open his eyes.

“Y’here to kill me?” Jesse asks, words slurring together.

“Jesse,” says Gabe’s voice. Jesse goes rigid. It sounds rough and distant, but it's _his_ voice. He swallows thickly.

“Just fuckin’ kill me already. Put me outta my misery,” Jesse says. He lifts the bottle to take a deep gulp, keeping his eyes pressed shut.

“I… can't,” Gabe’s voice says. It sounds so much like he used to but there’s a quality to the tone of his voice that makes Jesse finally open his eyes. He turns his head toward the sound. It's the Reaper in Gabe’s body, smokey and insubstantial, but there's something about it that looks… Jesse forces himself to stop that line of thinking. It's a trick. It has to be.

“That's why you're here, isn't it?”

“No,” Gabe’s voice says. His mask is nowhere in sight, even though his hood is up. There’s an almost self-conscious look to the way he’s standing. Jesse drags a hand over his face. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed as he sits up, letting the half-empty whiskey bottle dangle from his hand between his legs.

“Are you lyin’?” Jesse asks looking up to meet his eyes. They soften, his brows coming together.  Gabe’s eyes. Jesse knows, suddenly, with certainty, that he’s looking at Gabe’s eyes. It makes his stomach lurch.

“No,” Gabe’s voice says again, though there’s an uncertainty to his tone that Jesse can’t quite bring himself to trust.

“You understand why I ain’t convinced,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Then why are you here?”

Gabe hesitates, shuffles on the spot. Jesse doesn’t take his eyes off of him.

“I don’t know,” he says finally. “There’s… something about you.”

Jesse frowns. He doesn’t like the way this conversation is going - he’s trying not to let his guard down, but Gabe - this creature - isn’t making it easy. He takes a long swig from his bottle of whiskey.

“Uh huh,” Jesse drawls. “Talon’s got it out for me.”

“They don’t know I’m here,” Gabe says. Jesse straightens a little, narrowing his eyes at him.

“I know what it looks like, but I ain’t a moron,” he says. Gabe doesn’t seem to know what to do with his face for a moment.

“I know that.”

Jesse swallows and has to look away. He steadies himself with another swig of whiskey as the silence stretches on between them.

“I can feel you,” Gabe says, voice low, going quiet. Jesse’s head snaps back around to look at him.

“What did you say?” Jesse says carefully.

“The first time, in the desert - you looked familiar,” Gabe says haltingly. “You recognized my face.”

Jesse doesn’t say anything. Gabe presses on.

“I didn’t understand. You said my name,” he says. “I hadn’t heard it in years. I didn’t… I didn’t understand.”

It’s almost painful for Jesse to maintain eye contact with the way Gabe’s eyes are boring into his own, but he can’t look away. He’s got a white-knuckle grip on his bottle, shoulders rigid.

“They sent me after you and it was _easy_ to find you,” Gabe says. “It shouldn’t have been. And then - I remembered.”

“What did you remember?” Jesse asks, carefully.

“Your name. Who you are. Why you are… important to me.”

“Don’t,” Jesse says sharply. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Jesse,” Gabe says, a pleading note in his voice. “Please trust me.”

“Talon sent you,” Jesse says, scrambling to his feet. He wobbles on the spot, the whiskey sloshing around in his head. His calves press against the side of the bed. “Talon sent you to fuck with me, to _kill_ me.”

“They don’t know that I’m here,” Gabe says again.

“How the fuck am I supposed to believe that?”

Gabe goes silent. Jesse shakes his head, looks away. He can feel tears prickling behind his eyes. He wishes that the Reaper had killed him when it had had the chance.

“Jesse,” Gabe says again. Jesse closes his eyes briefly.

“Please. Don’t,” Jesse says, voice breaking. He can’t look at him. He’ll lose his resolve.

After a moment, smoke surrounds him. A cold hand slides up and cups Jesse’s cheek, turning his head gently to force him to look at Gabe, the Reaper. Jesse swallows thickly. He feels something break and crumble in his chest.

“There’s so little of me left,” Gabe says, voice whisper quiet. The sound flows through the smoke and around Jesse, enveloping him. “But I can feel me inside you. It’s like something in you woke me up - pulled me back out. For the first time - I… You make me feel like a real person.”

Jesse clenches his jaw, trying to keep the tears from falling. “You died.”

“They brought me back,” Gabe says. His hand is still on Jesse’s cheek - Jesse’s not strong enough to make himself move away.

“Talon,” Jesse says bitterly. A pained look crosses Gabe’s face.

“I don’t know why they did it,” he says. “I didn’t ask for it. I don’t remember much.”

“But you remember me,” Jesse says. It’s not a question.

“I do,” Gabe says. There’s that old familiar note of confidence in his voice.

“You’re really you?” Jesse asks, his voice small. He doesn’t dare to hope, he fears the answer. He meets Gabe’s eyes.

“I - I think I am,” Gabe says. His other hand presses against Jesse’s chest. There’s a weight there, a substantial feeling behind the press of Gabe’s hand. Jesse doesn’t lean into it, not yet. “Why can I feel myself inside you? It’s more than… It’s stronger than the others.”

“Others?” Jesse echoes. Gabe drops his gaze.

“I have to - I need others’ life force to survive,” Gabe says. “This is different.”

“You gonna bleed me dry?”

“No,” Gabe sounds shocked at the question. He digs his fingers into Jesse’s chest slightly. “It’s - _you're_ all I have left.”

Jesse has too many questions, too many doubts, and he doesn’t know where to begin. And yet - _and yet_ -

“Gabe,” Jesse says. He lets his head fall forward, presses his forehead against Gabe’s. A tear leaks out of the corner of his eye before he can stop it. “Is it - it’s really you?”

“I think it is,” Gabe says, letting his own eyes close, his voice thick with emotion. “I need help.”

Every last remaining bit of logic in Jesse’s brain is screaming for him to run, get out of dodge before it's too late.

“We’ll figure it out, Gabe,” Jesse finds himself saying. “We’ll figure it out together.”


End file.
